Your Spiritual Journey
The Need for Study
The Need for Study
Last week my sermon was based off 2 Corinthians 2:14-16, and my main point was that we are victorious soldiers in God’s victory parade, spreading the aroma of Christ wherever we go. However, a couple people noticed that the translation I put on my PowerPoint gave a different image. The 2011 NIV says that God “leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession”. Obviously, captives are not the same as soldiers. I really appreciated how seriously these people were taking the lesson and how they were sifting everything said back through the word of God. It gave us the opportunity to sit down and study the text a little deeper. We agreed that the context of the larger passage gave credibility to my teaching, but more than that we got to look at other translations and even the Greek. It turns out the word “captive” is not in the original language at all, which is why the translations I had previously studied with did not have it. Case closed. But this study did remind me of how important deep study is.
The Bible is in no way a simple book. From the ancient cultural references within the stories to translational issues on the outside, some digging is required if we really want to be sure our interpretation is faithful to the author’s original intent. Of course, we never want someone to feel like they need a PhD to read the Bible, but with all the resources at our fingertips today, it’s important that we occasionally dive into the deep end of study so that we can most faithfully follow our God who’s revealed Himself in this good book.
Blessings,
Houston
